


Full Moon Nights

by blackkat



Series: Crossover and Fusion Drabbles [39]
Category: Marvel 616, Moon Knight (Comics), The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Hopeful Ending, Humor, M/M, Post-Book 14: Cold Days, Pre-Relationship, Sarcasm Bros, soul gaze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22406623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Marc Spector meets Harry Dresden. Astonishingly, nothing catches on fire in the process, even if there is a lot of screaming.
Relationships: Harry Dresden/Marc Spector, Marc Spector & Khonshu
Series: Crossover and Fusion Drabbles [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1145195
Comments: 37
Kudos: 677
Collections: Cosmic Horror and Urban Fantasy





	Full Moon Nights

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Marc Spector, Moon Knight, meets Harry Dresden, Winter Knight; more humorous than angst preferably

Being back in Chicago is weird.

“No werewolf masks or poison in the water supply this time, right?” Marc asks Khonshu, frowning down at the tattered old map of Undertown that Jean-Paul was able to dig up.

Peering over his shoulder, Khonshu hums, considering. “ ** _You would know better than I, my son. This is your birthplace_**.”

“Ha,” Marc mutters, because he hasn’t been back since the wolfman thing. He wouldn’t be back _now_ , but one of Khonshu's relics getting stolen from the museum is more pressing than any lingering bad memories of Marlene stabbing him. Wincing, Marc rubs his chest. Really, that probably should have been a sign that their relationship was on the rocks.

“Chicago’s weird,” he tells Khonshu. “Even more than New York. You know that, right?”

Khonshu laughs at him, because he’s always going to be an unhelpful asshole. “ ** _The edges of reality bend here. Why do you think you could see me as a child, Marc?_** ”

“I thought I just had shit luck,” Marc mutters, and refolds the map, tucking it into his belt. “You're sure someone from Undertown grabbed your mirror?”

“ ** _Or someone who thinks it makes good cover, to live down there_** ,” Khonshu says, sly, and Marc closes his eyes.

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” he mutters, but he rises to his feet and drops from the top of the ugly statue he was sitting on. The park’s empty at midnight, but the sound of trickling water is loud, obvious as it drips from a wide stone culvert that disappears beneath the man-made lake. This entrance to Undertown is the one marked _mostly safe!_ on the map in excited handwriting, so Marc's faith in not getting eaten by something three paces in is less than zero, but he tugs his hood up and asks Khonshu, “What down here is going to try to kill me?”

“ ** _Maybe a fairy,_** ” Khonshu offers after a moment of thought.

“That’s a slur,” Marc tells him. “Say it again and I'm going to kick your ass.”

He can practically _feel_ the roll of Khonshu's eyes. “ ** _It’s not a slur to a fairy._** ”

Marc lets that sink in for a moment— _actual fairies_ , and fuck this whole mission, honestly—then pulls a face. “You take me to the nicest places.”

“ ** _Do_ you _want the mad cultists to have a mirror that shows them the future?_** ”

“No,” Marc allows grudgingly. “You're still an asshole.” He pulls back the section of chain-link fence that covers the culvert, then slips through into the darkness, and tries not to grimace as his boots splash through scummy water. “They’d better not be able to see me coming.”

Khonshu clicks his tongue, and Marc catches a glimpse of the god reflected in a puddle. Vindictively, he steps right into it, breaking the image. “ ** _No faith in me, my son. I would hardly let such low, crawling thieves spy on my knight_**.”

“Unless it amused you, and then you’d do it in a heartbeat,” Marc accuses.

Khonshu laughs, loud and echoing in the tunnel, and doesn’t answer, but really that’s answer enough.

“Ugh,” Marc says, pointed, but doesn’t stop. The culvert turns up ahead, but between the joins in the concrete is a narrow gap, leading downward. Marc turns sideways, sliding through, and instead of grabbing for the rickety wooden ladder set into the earth, he drops, cloak flaring out around him. It catches the air well enough to slow him, and after a long, long moment, Marc lands lightly on worn old cobblestones. It’s damp, musty; Marc's pretty sure the lake is right above his head, and he doesn’t like it, but at the very least the tunnel is deserted.

“Where are all the dangers you threatened me with?” he asks Khonshu pointedly. “Getting sloppy?”

Khonshu laughs, low and menacing in the darkness. “ ** _Running water lessens their power. They're waiting further in._** ”

“Great, thanks,” Marc mutters, less than amused, and palms a crescent dart. There's a low light all around him, following him like it comes from his vestments, but Marc knows better than to think it’s Khonshu being helpful. He’s just making Marc a more obvious target.

Still. He has a point about his mirror in the wrong hands, and Marc isn't about to let a bunch of idiots try to use it. Knowing Khonshu, there are some nasty surprises attached, for both the users and anyone in their immediate vicinity.

“Next time you have an artifact sitting around that can _bend time_ , maybe tell me so I can steal it before anyone else,” Marc says. Steven tries to buy as many of Khonshu's old things as possible, but even he’s got limits.

“ ** _Now where’s the fun in that, my son?_** ”

“Fuck you.” The curse has less impact when there's no visible figure to direct it at, but Marc's not about to let that deter him. He makes a turn to the left when the tunnel branches, away from the lake, and frowns at the sound of scurrying just beyond the light. Too big for rats. Even Chicago rats.

Maybe he should have come as Mr. Knight, rather than Moon Knight. Mr. Knight’s better in tight spaces like this.

There’s another scurry behind him, and Marc pauses, debating. Flips up his crescent dart, watching the silver spin, and catches it. “I'm going to eat your hearts right out of your chests,” he says, flat, dark, angry, and the sounds stops short. Something hard, like a carapace, scrapes stone, and in a blur Marc spins, flings the dart out, and steps forward. A squeal tells him exactly where his target is, and he drives his boot down with all the strength the full moon gives him.

Like stepping on a particularly large cockroach, there's a wet crack, a squish. The squeal cuts off, and with a grunt of satisfaction Marc leans over the corpse. “For Khonshu,” he says, low, and Khonshu's laughter curls through the darkness. Embedded in the crab-like body, the crescent dart shines, and Khonshu takes his due.

There are no more scurrying bodies in the darkness, and Marc keeps walking.

Mab summons Harry in the middle of the night, and she’s not nice about it.

“I'm coming, I'm coming. Keep grabbing me like that and I'm going to get the wrong idea,” Harry snaps, batting aside a hand that goes to push him through the doors of the court. _This_ is why he’s taken to living on Demonreach; every time he tries to catch a bit of shut-eye in Arctis Tor, Mab discovers a sudden, urgent desire for his company. Or, well, more like a sudden, urgent desire to make his life even more difficult than it already it.

“Harry.” Mab turns a thin smile on him as he stumbles to a stop in the empty hall. She’s as beautiful as ever, but she’s wrapped in a robe, clearly just out of bed herself, and Harry pauses, wary.

“Is this a seduction thing?” he asks suspiciously.

Mab laughs at him, which isn't exactly flattering. “No, my Knight, I have a task for you.”

Better than a seduction. Marginally. Harry squints at her for a moment, and asks, “It couldn’t have waited for the morning?”

“No.” Mab’s tone is immovable. “Something of great power has disappeared from its resting place, and now resides in Undertown. Retrieve it.”

“ _It_ ,” Harry repeats. “Descriptive. Also, Undertown? Isn't the place overrun with Winterfae on a good day? Can't you just order one of them to do it?”

The look Mab gives him says she can't, and he’s an idiot for thinking she can. Also that she can scramble his guts like spaghetti and is very close to trying if he keeps this up. Harry bristles, but keeps his mouth shut long enough to bury the sharp comment he wants to make, and then asks, maybe a little sullenly, “What am I retrieving for you, my queen?”

Thankfully, Mab doesn’t call him on the lack of enthusiasm, though she should really be used to it by now. Instead, she saunters over to her empty throne, settling down in it despite the lack of adoring court, and gives Harry a thin, cat-like smile. “A mirror,” she says. “Large, ornate, and smuggled out of Egypt while the Sphinx was still young. Its surface can bend time, allowing one to see into the past or future.”

Shit. There’s a cold, sinking feeling in Harry's chest. Something like that in unknown hands never makes for a good day. “Let me guess,” he says evenly. “Gentleman Johnny’s flexing his art-collecting muscles? The Denarians want to predict the stock market and make a killing? The Summer Queen’s decided she really doesn’t like the status quo after all?”

Mab narrows her eyes at him. “Do not make such accusations, even in jest,” she warns sharply, and Harry hides a wince. “The mirror is in Undertown, in the hands of mortal practitioners. Retrieve it.”

Apparently he’s not getting any more than that. Harry grimaces, and it irks right down to his soul, but he bows and steps back. “Of course, my queen.”

The feeling of Mab’s eyes on his back is like a knife pressed up against his spine, but Harry makes it out of Arctis Tor and back into Chicago without anyone trying to stab him, so that’s at least better than most days he gets dragged into the citadel.

“No more sleeping in Arctis Tor, even when you're tired,” he tells himself, and refuses to feel bad about it. Talking to Mouse is always better, but Mouse is with Maggie, and Harry's not about to pull him away just so he can subject himself to judgmental looks every time he talks.

With a grimace, Harry touches his mother’s pendant, checks the Ways, and then walks a block up, steps sideways into the Nevernever, takes a sharp right, and opens a door right into Undertown, close to the spot where Jenny Greenteeth once held Georgia. The tunnels are quiet, hushed, and Harry can't tell if it’s the Winter Knight’s presence or the threat of whatever the mirror does, but he doesn’t like it either way.

“Great,” he mutters, and taps his staff against the cobblestone floor, bringing a light up to wash over the area. There's running water nearby, something to avoid, and probably at least a few trolls this close to the old bridges. Harry doesn’t particularly want to meet a troll, but he’d rather tangle with a troll than a whole group of dark wizards with a mirror that can see through time. Not that he’s going to get much of a choice.

With an irritated sigh—at Mab more than anything else, because he’s her Knight but not her errand boy—he picks a random direction and starts walking.

Trouble has a way of finding him, more often than not. Harry's willing to bet that today definitely isn't going to be the end of that streak. He just has to wait for it to show up and try to eat him.

“You said _fairies_ , you didn’t say _flesh-eating monsters_!” Marc snarls, ducking long claws that take a chunk out of the stone where his head just was.

“ ** _She’s a fairy, technically_** ,” Khonshu points out, sounding like he’s having a grand old time. Marc _growls_ , more than ready to take a piece out of his god, but before he can even glance in that direction he has to deal with _this_.

The woman—green-skinned, white-haired, with dagger-sharp teeth as long as Marc's pinky and acid spit that’s already almost eaten through his mask, because _fuck Chicago_ —shrieks and throws herself at him, too fast for anything human. Marc can't dodge, but he lets her hit him, tumbles back under her weight and takes the slashing blow of her claws across his cheek as he gets his feet against her stomach. With a grunt and a heave, he slams her backwards into the stone, then twists upright, catches her fist, and dodges the teeth that snap at his throat. Annoyed, he throws her again, then flings a crescent dart after her as she bounces off the wall. It cuts deep into green skin, making her scream, but it’s in fury rather than pain. She rounds on him again, and Marc curses, ducks—

“ _Arctis_!”

With a crackling rush, ice catches the fairy as she leaps, washing along her limbs and over her matted hair like spreading fire. She crashes into Marc and knocks him to the ground, slower, caught off guard, and Marc doesn’t even hesitate. He flips a crescent dart off his belt, then lashes out, driving it deep into frozen flesh, and can feel the instant the life goes out of her, the splatter of cold blood across his gloves. “For Khonshu,” he snarls at her bared teeth, and feels no guilt when Khonshu hisses low and eager in his ear.

There's a long moment of silence as Marc just lies there, trying to catch his breath, and then a step. A human step; Marc knows the scuff of old tennis shoes, even in the dark. “All right there?” a quiet voice asks, and Marc grunts, opening his eyes. He rolls, throwing the fairy’s body off of him, and says, “Thanks.”

“ _Ignis_ ,” the man murmurs, and a ball of light kindles in midair, apparently not attached to anything. Marc sits up, eyes flickering over the edges of a long leather duster, the bottom of a heavy oak staff, and then rising. He’s not a small man, but this guy’s probably got a solid two heads on him, and his skull’s practically brushing the top of the tunnel. The duster just makes him look bigger, and Marc calculates the best way to take him out if he’s a threat. The legs, probably; unless this guy is _really_ good, that much leg’s a liability.

Under a fringe of shaggy, too-long black hair, the guy’s eyebrows are both raised, and his gaze is very definitely resting on Marc's vestments. “Is white the in color this year?” he asks, pointed. “Very chic, I'm sure, but you're wandering around _Undertown_ looking like a big white flag that says _eat me_. Are you crazy?”

“Yeah,” Marc says, unimpressed, and gets to his feet. The mask is a lost cause, and not even worth retrieving; he leaves it where he threw it when the fairy tried to eat his face. “And you look like a treat on a stick. What’s your point?”

There's a moment of startled silence, then a snort. The man leans on his staff, looking Marc over closely, and then nods at the silver crescent moon on Marc's chest and says, “That looks an awful lot like a symbol that means something.”

“Never seen a crescent moon before?” Marc asks dryly. “Try looking up sometime. It’s not even that far above your head.” When dark eyes narrow faintly, he shrugs and says, “Symbol of my god.”

The suspicion doesn’t fade from the stranger’s face. “Not a capital-G god?” he asks. “Is this the kind of god who’s going to open an office in Chicago and make me deal with even more politics in the city?”

“He’s more the kind that wants to eat any evil-doers you leave wandering around,” Marc says. “We’re not going to be in Chicago long, anyway.”

“Eating evildoers?” The man grins, a flash of white teeth in the shadows. “Well, I can't say I object to that. Especially down here. Which god was this again?”

Marc considers him for a long moment, then glances sideways. Khonshu is stooped above the fairy’s body, blood dripping from his white gloves but empty eye sockets trained on the stranger, and when Marc's gaze settles on him he turns his head, amusement curled like smoke around him.

“ ** _He serves a dangerous master_** ,” Khonshu says. “ ** _You’d know something about that, wouldn’t you, my son?_** ”

Marc makes a face, but if Khonshu isn't outright protesting, it’s probably fine. “Khonshu,” he says. “The god of the moon.” And other things, but there’s no need to lay everything out at once, and especially not to a stranger.

The man pauses, gaze flickering from Marc to the spot where Khonshu is looming. He can't see Khonshu; no one else can. But it looks like he’s aware that something’s there, and that’s a definite step up from most people. “Khonshu,” he repeats. “And what pantheon is that again?”

“Egyptian,” Marc allows after a moment.

The man’s face twists, something like resignation surfacing. “Let me guess, you're down here looking for some sort of time-twisting mirror?”

Marc isn't sure whether him knowing that is a good sign or a bad one. Frowning, he looks the man over again, then inclines his head. “It belongs to Khonshu,” he says. “My god created it thousands of years ago, and it was stolen from him.”

For a long moment, the man just stares at him. Then, with a groan, he lifts a hand to rub at his forehead, and says, “Great. So you're just…a priest looking to get your god’s stuff back?”

“An avatar,” Marc corrects, bemused. Most people don’t take things nearly this well. At least not without a little mockery.

“Of course you are.” The guy looks pained. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to accept a rock-paper-scissors match to decide which of us gets to take the stupid thing home?”

Marc considers him, considers the help with the fairy. “I’d cheat,” he says truthfully.

The man laughs, like he’s startled, and takes a half-step forward. “Me too,” he confesses, grinning. “Got a name?”

“Marc Spector. Moon Knight.” Easy enough a name to give. Marc Spector is dead to the outside world; Steven Grant and Jake Lockley took his place a long time ago.

Humor flickers over the man’s face, and he chuckles. “Harry Dresden,” he returns, and the curl of his mouth is rueful. “Winter Knight.”

That makes Marc snort, and he tips his head. “Your master?”

The complete blankness of Harry's face says more than words ever could, when compared to the emotion of a moment ago. “Mab, the Winter Queen of the Fae Courts.”

At Marc's shoulder, Khonshu hums, low and amused and deadly. “ ** _Leave little Mab to me,_** ” he says. “ ** _Retrieve the mirror. Face her last, my son. She will be no obstacle._** ”

Marc gives him a skeptical look, but shrugs. “Khonshu says we should leave Mab to him,” he says. “Want to call that rock-paper-scissors game a tie?”

Shifting his weight, Harry straightens and lifts his staff, the orb of light following. “Sure,” he says, and his grin is lazy and full of teeth. “You know where we’re going?”

Marc shakes his head. “Trouble usually finds me,” he says. “I was just heading down.”

Harry laughs, deep and ringing, and it has force to it, something that makes Marc notice in a way he normally doesn’t. He sweeps another careful look over Harry, then glances sideways as bony fingers curl around his shoulder. Khonshu looks intent, a falcon staring down at its prey, and he cocks his head, meets Marc's gaze.

“ ** _Tell him,_** ” he says, wicked. “ ** _Tell the knight that I can remove his mantle if he would swear himself to me. Mab guards the rest of my kind, keeps them locked away behind the gates, but she has not faced one like me in ages. I am more than she is, and I can free him._** ”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?” Marc retorts, stepping back and knocking his hand away. “I'm not your missionary, fuck off.”

Khonshu hisses, and it’s the closest Marc has heard to true anger from him in years. “ ** _My son,_ now _._** ”

Marc pauses, watching him. The look in his eyes is the greed for power that Marc has always known, but—

There's something else, too.

“Your kind?” he asks, and Khonshu laughs, a sound like bones rattling in a stone vessel.

“ ** _Tell him_** ,” he says. “ ** _I am not like the rest. I would keep humanity intact, and between the two of you, Nemesis will be no more._** ”

It sounds like there’s something bigger. Something deeper. Marc weighs his responses, but—

Khonshu is his god, and while Marc would normally happily take a swing at him, he’s never known Khonshu to want to harm the vast majority of humanity. Just wrongdoers. Unless torturing Marc counts.

“Khonshu says he can remove your mantle,” he says with a shrug, meeting Harry's narrowed eyes for a brief instant before Harry looks away. “Whatever Mab is keeping back, he can do the same, with us in his service. And defeat Nemesis.”

Dark eyes widen, and Harry sways back like he’s been struck. “I—” he starts, only to have the words die in his mouth. Pauses, and glances back up.

This time, their eyes connect and hold.

It’s a little like falling into ice, a little like drowning in fire. A little like flying, and a lot like a good, dark man who keeps fighting even when there’s nothing left. Marc tumbles into it, sees, _knows_.

For once, it looks like Khonshu is telling the truth.

Harry can't quite breathe. There are afterimages behind his eyelids, a lonely tomb, a full moon, blood and pain and shattered glass, and he lifts his head, meets Marc's eyes across the space between them. It feels like much less space than there was a moment ago.

“It’s not just me,” he says finally, hoarse, and it’s a betrayal of Mab just to entertain the idea, but—

Harry never wanted to be Winter Knight. He picked the path when he was backed into a corner, and finally managing to fight his way out of it isn't something he’s even dared to think about. Not really.

Marc looks sideways, eyes focusing on empty air, and then shrugs. “If they want to swear to Khonshu, too, he’ll take the mantles off,” he says, but…not as if he understands what he’s saying. Not like it means anything to him, and—it’s stupid, but that’s what makes Harry think he’s telling the truth. That and his soul, sand and moonlight and blood, one single light in the darkness.

It means an escape for Molly, too, though. A way out. One master traded for another, but if Khonshu can get rid of the Contagion—

It’s madness, considering it. Harry swallows, but can't quite tear his gaze away from Marc's face, scarred and bruised and steady, his eyes unwavering.

Crazy, maybe, but—well. It’s Harry's kind of crazy.

“Let’s find that mirror first,” he says, not a refusal but also not acceptance. He needs to talk to Molly before he decides anything.

Marc doesn’t seem to care. He just shrugs, and the slant of light from Harry's spell crosses his face like moonlight, lingers. He’s handsome; Harry wonders if that comes along with the avatar of a god thing.

“Sure,” Marc says, and pulls his white hood up. It’s still clean. The whole bright-white outfit is startlingly clean, even after he was rolling around in the dirt with a bleeding fairy, and if the service-to-a-god thing comes with on-demand dry cleaning, Harry might just be sold. “Any idea where it is?”

Standing there in the darkness, glowing faintly, face shadowed, he really does look like a piece of a god on earth. Harry breathes in, breathes out, and scrubs a hand over his face. This is going to take some getting used to.

“I think if we wander around long enough, we’ll run into someone trying to do bad magic with something that doesn’t belong to them,” he says, and makes his voice cheerful. “Or something trying to eat us.”

“Oh good,” Marc mutters. “My favorite.” Still, he falls into step when Harry starts down the next long corridor, heading for one of the areas where someone once tried to become a god. It feels fitting.

“Both?” Harry proposes, like a peace offering, but he can't hide his grin.

Marc shoots him a sideways look, mouth curling. “I could use another fight,” he says, and Harry laughs. It bubbles up from inside him, bright and free in a way it hasn’t been since before Susan’s death, and he’s almost surprised to hear it.

“A man after my own heart,” he says, and Marc snorts.

“I’ll take it if you're offering,” he allows, deadpan enough that Harry can't tell if it’s a joke or not. “But returns are a bitch.”

“How about we share?” Harry counters. “You can have it on weekends.”

“So you're making me your bit on the side?” Marc raises a brow at him. “Demoted already.”

“I'm a busy man,” Harry says virtuously, and then pauses, cocking his head. “Hear that?”

Voices, up ahead. Around the corner, there's a faint glow, like moonlight, and a dart of silver like light reflecting off a mirror.

In the darkness, Marc smiles. “Come on,” he says, and is gone, a flash of white and then a scream somewhere else.

“What a heartthrob,” Harry says facetiously, to no one in particular, and follows with a dark grin. “Hey, dibs on the leader!”

“Get him yourself, if you want him.”

“Hey! What did we just say about sharing?”

Marc laughs at him. It’s not entirely objectionable, either.

It’s possible Harry's in over his head, but there's a spark of hope in his chest, a light in the darkness, and for once he can't bring himself to care.


End file.
